Towel dispensers are known in the art. There is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,931,339 to Dodge et al. a dispenser for individually dispensing paper towels from a stack of interfolded paper towels. The paper towels are received in a housing and dispensed by their ends through a slot in a smooth and generally uninterrupted manner. The slot is formed with a narrow medial portion and a large end portions to release only one paper towel at a time. Moreover, the dispenser resists a user pulling out a punch of paper towels from the dispenser; a problem which is well known in the art.
There is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,863 to Schutz et al. an insert device for a gravity-feed sheet dispenser having a housing for receiving a stack of folded sheets. The insert has an inclined frontal portion and generally operates to restrict the width of the dispenser opening.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,723 to Morand discloses a large capacity towel dispenser. The dispenser has a rear wall, side walls and front and rear funnel walls extending to a funnel height between bottom portions of the side walls on opposite sides of a feed slot. There is additionally provided a pair of shelf members projecting downwardly and inwardly from respective ones of the side walls. Each shelf member has a shelf width perpendicular to the rear wall approximately 45 percent of a housing depth between upper extremities of the frontal walls, inward extremities of the shelf members wherein the inward extremities are spaced above the feed slot within the funnel height and spaced apart by a distance of not greater than approximately 90 percent of the stacked width, thereby partially supporting the sheets. Each shelf member has an inwardly facing panel surface that forms a side angle of approximately 45 degrees with the side wall.